by Marie Jamet
Children are not just victims of climate disasters — they are emerging as key agents of change. Through games, workshops and real-world exploration, schools across Europe are building their resilience and civic role. From awareness to action, a new generation is learning to lead on disaster risk reduction.
Pupils from a primary class in the French Alps gather around their teacher to observe and study the aftermath of flash floods in La Bérarde which happened a year ago in June 2024. This field trip builds on the work done on
ExploRisk38, an online game designed to educate children in the Isère region in France about natural hazard risk reduction.
Creators Valentin Forand, former risk-culture and risk management advisor for the administrative official for Isère and Luc François, technical advisor and coordinator of major risks for the Grenoble Academic District, imagined this double approach to make natural hazards more tangible than distant TV images.
The online platform serves as a resource centre for teachers, featuring a colourful, interactive interface built with months-worth of work and inputs from local officials, educators and risk reduction experts. After testing with teachers and children, the final version launched in March 2025.
“
When we talk about risks, and more specifically natural hazards, we're talking about the transformation and observation of our environment. There is an ecological aspect, in the strict sense of the term, since we observe our environment, but also how society adapts and transforms itself.” explains Forand. This dual approach of local ground-level observation and digital learning is aimed at children aged 8-13, who are at a perfect age, according to the experts, to learn about risk resilience through spontaneous curiosity and responsiveness, supporting the national security principle that every citizen is responsible for their own safety and that of their fellow citizens.
Forand says: “
Our aim is to pass on a culture of risk, a memory of risk and a commitment to citizenship, civic responsibility and solidarity. It's a form of empowerment for children: giving young people the ability to take action.”
“Are you ready?” Empowering children
Natural hazards are more frequent and intense due to climate change. Children are particularly vulnerable as direct victims of natural disasters or indirect victims when health systems or schools are destroyed or disrupted by crisis situations. The NGO
Save the children estimates that 1.2 billion children currently live in areas under climate threats.
This specific vulnerability prompted a
ministerial roundtable at the UN Global Forum on Disaster Risk Reduction 2025 on June 5 emphasising the importance of making schools safe from climate hazard and of embedding risk reduction into school curricula, like in France or Italy, to foster preparedness.
The UNDRR launched its "Are You Ready" campaign on International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction 2024, focusing on children as "agents of change” with
several events across Europe. Rosalind Joanna Cook, Head of Campaigns and Community Unit at UNDRR, explains the UN relies on teachers to reach children, providing
activation toolkits from resources implemented all around the globe, scout badges, and games like the online
Stop Disasters game, which reached over 1 million plays and 570,000 downloads in 2024.
“
We aimed at informing children of disasters, but also of the crucial role they can play in disaster reduction in the sense that when they're empowered and they learn about it in school, they can take the learning to their community” Cook explains.
Experimenting in Iceland
In Seyðisfjörður, Iceland, the Civil Defence implements those principles through a dedicated section in a pilot information web portal presented during the
webinar on "Integrating web portals for local Decision-Making in Extreme Weather Risk Management" organised last February by The HuT and CMINE projects.
Seyðisfjörður is a pilot territory for The HuT which is a European project that aims at bringing together all actors of risk reduction to maximise efforts to face extreme climate-induced hazards.
The HuT brings together 10 pilot territories across Europe to test and adapt risk-reduction tools, avoid losses, generate innovation and gain social, environmental and cultural benefits.
Ingibjörg Lilja Ómarsdóttir, director of restoration and education at the Icelandic Civil Defence, specifies it will integrate educational content for primary school children about their immediate vicinity and will be supported by workshops and themed weeks within school curricula, building on previous educational work done in volcanic hazard areas in south Iceland.
She explains that they learned through experience and research on post traumatic syndrome (PTSD) that children bear traumas from previous generations through family stories. Shared experiences through frameworks initiatives like The HuT or UNICEF resources help the Civil Defence find pedagogical solutions to co-create tailored programmes with children and teachers.
Like Forand from ExplorRisk38, Ingibjörg Lilja Ómarsdóttir believes “it is very important that everyone is involved and prepared. It is far from possible to have some kind of system that takes care of everything when something happens. People should be responsible for as much as they can manage.”
“Children are agents of change”
The risk reduction community consensus focuses on two aims: building children's disaster resilience and protect them while nurturing civic responsibility through gamification.
Even though children were not central in the project, they have always been part of The HuT original blueprint. As “
working on children implies a longer time scale” explains its coordinator and associate professor at the University of Salerno, Michele Calvello, they have been included not as a vulnerable population but as “
agents of change, the future of the community”.
To work on the subject, the project had anticipated two packages: a serious game and some educational materials. These two independent packages ended up being joined into a research project featuring a
card-game on natural hazards, with the first DIY prototype focusing on landslides.
It serves three purposes that older children between 11 and 17 can understand. Cavello says: “
It addresses risk awareness first, helping children grasp the notion that hazards are a statistical concept and how populations and decision makers can interact with hazards by making children manage a town’s money as adults would.” It also explains interactions with the community, teaching them who might be involved.
Calvello emphasises that risk reduction education shouldn't be delivered as a lecture; therefore, the game functions as both role-play and "
a means to discuss with children".
Natural hazards education involves paired concepts reflecting children’s various statuses: present victims/future leaders, learners/educators, players but of serious games.
As Ingibjörg Lilja Ómarsdótti notes it “immediately strengthens children's disaster resilience. Moreover, children represent the future generation, the future decision-makers and leaders. Thus, it is extremely important to have them involved from the beginning, starting in childhood.”
Ultimately, these actions will help shape risk reduction policies: Cook reminds us that “
children can challenge their parents; they can challenge their community to do more and to ensure that they're resilient to disaster, to climate change.” Hence the Sendai 2030 Framework's goals of protecting children and of empowering them to reduce risks - something that may benefit everyone.
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